


Revival

by ACometAppears



Series: Who The Hell Is Bucky? [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Violence, PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 13:24:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1552016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ACometAppears/pseuds/ACometAppears
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Bucky shows up at his apartment, Steve tries to take care of him. It's hard, though, when Bucky doesn't feel like he deserves it; he's haunted by the memories of his past, and they're interfering with his attempts to be Steve's friend again. </p><p>Fourth part of the 'Who The Hell Is Bucky?' series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revival

Bucky’s eyes water, but he isn’t crying. He’s not sure how to anymore, Steve thinks. 

Though he sobbed silently into Steve’s neck moments ago, now, it’s like he’s emotionally drained: he’s shown all the emotion he can, for now. That small, silent expression of all of the feelings he’s trying to come to terms with was all he could manage. _He can’t even cry when he wants to_ , Steve thinks angrily, though he doesn’t show any anger outwardly (he doesn't want Bucky to get the wrong idea) as he leads Bucky towards the stairs. 

He feels a tug on his sleeve, and looks around with a questioning glance. Bucky’s eyes are still streaming, the wet tears flowing, but his face is blank, and expressionless. He’s not even aware that he’s weeping, anymore – too focussed on the task at hand, and too out of touch with how he’s feeling inside. Steve thinks, for a horrifying moment, that he might be looking at the Winter Soldier right now. 

“Me first,” The soldier rasps, his voice thick with the tears he’s still shedding; the crying he did earlier. Steve frowns, but lets him walk ahead; he nods his thanks, before they walk up to Steve’s apartment together. _Of course he knows which one is mine_. 

Steve realises, as he watches Bucky furtively glance left and right, and take the corners defensively with all the stealth that’s been burned into him, that this is Bucky being protective of him: he wants to go ahead, and make sure there’s nothing waiting to attack Steve; to take out his only friend, and leave him alone. Sure, it’s unlikely that someone will want to attack him here . . . But Bucky’s not taking that chance. 

_Perhaps he doesn’t trust himself to walk behind me, either_ , Steve thinks, and feels his face drain of blood. _Maybe he thinks he’ll forget who I am, and attack me. Maybe he trusts me enough to put himself in the vulnerable position of going ahead – or maybe he just doesn’t trust himself enough to put me in front of him, and make me vulnerable._

When they arrive at the apartment, Steve unlocks his door, and lets Bucky in: he spends around ten minutes checking that there’s no one else in there. Steve awkwardly trails around after him, trying to make small-talk about the lack of personal touch to the place; the makeshift gym, the TV – the bathroom, _you feel up to a shower later?_

“I can’t,” Bucky tells him, looking around the room with a clinical gaze. Steve frowns, confused. Bucky sighs, and takes his metal hand from his pocket, wiggling the fingers for Steve to see with a grim expression of shame on his face.  
“Oh . . .”  
“Yeah. I was a little rusty letting you catch me the other day, but I don’t wanna actually _be rusty_ ,” 

Steve smiles at that, despite himself. Bucky smiles tightly – it's clearly hard for him to let go of that cold, serious persona they forced onto him. At least the tears have stopped falling now – Steve wonders if Bucky had even realised they’d still been trailing down his face, even when he’d stopped sobbing. 

“You hungry?” Steve asks tentatively. Bucky nods once. “. . . I have some pizza – I was just about to eat,” Bucky nods again, with that same tight smile. It’s gone in an instant. 

_It’s like there’s a limit to the amount of emotion he can show_ , Steve observes. _Earlier . . . That must have really taken it out of him._

When they get to the kitchen, Steve invites Bucky to sit down; he does so mechanically, the tears drying on his face, as he watches Steve get his dinner out of the oven; cut it up, and divide it into two equal portions on two plates. He keeps looking back at Bucky – it’s not that he doesn’t trust him, or thinks he needs constant monitoring, he just . . . He needs to see that Bucky’s here – _he’s there, I didn’t imagine it, he’s here, he’s not fighting me, he’s alive-_

He sets the plates and some cutlery down, and sits down opposite his old friend. There’s silence as they begin eating – well, Steve begins eating; he tries not to stare at Bucky. He’s sure he doesn’t want to feel like a freak, or a specimen, or some exhibit at a museum – though they both are. Old relics of an era long lost, but recently revived. 

Steve uses a knife and fork to cut up his pizza. Bucky stares as he does it: it’s obvious Steve is avoiding looking at him – _he can’t even stand the sight of you_ – but he stares, all the same. _Steve would eat potato chips with a knife and fork, if he could_. 

Bucky stares down at his food – he picks the slice up, and takes one bite. He chews it, and swallows. He’s never tasted pizza before, and doesn’t taste it, still.  
. . . But the texture is different to the chemical, prescription foods they used to feed him, like they were putting gas into a tank. 

His eyes find the knife and fork Steve laid out for him – they settle on the knife. It’s nice: serrated edge, blade just under three inches in length. Sufficient to stab someone in the heart, should he apply enough pressure to breach the sternum – not a problem, with his cybernetic arm – he would die in minutes. This type of knife – sharp enough to cut a pizza, long enough to pierce a sternum – would make quick work of a windpipe, or a brachial artery, or a femoral, or a carotid – even Captain Rogers wouldn’t stand a _chance_ against the Winter Soldier with his guard down like this-

He suddenly stands up, consciously forcing himself to regain control of his thoughts; scrubbing his mind clean of those awful analyses, and that way of thinking forced into his brain by those _awful fucking scientists, playing with his mind like it was a game, his body like he was a doll-_

“Can I have a bath now?” He asks, looking at the floor. He keeps his eyes down, and his metal hand in his pocket; Steve notices how he keeps it close to his body all the time, as if he’s ashamed; as if he’s trying to control it, afraid it’ll inflict damage even on its own. 

“Sure – you don’t have to ask,” Steve assures him, his voice remaining calm despite his fear for Bucky – the way he just stood up couldn’t have been the result of anything good. He desperately needs to put some meat on his bones, too. 

“I don’t have a towel,” Bucky reminds him. Steve nods, standing up and deciding to come back to his food later – if he can stomach it. 

It’s a pretty dumb excuse – but Bucky doesn’t want to let Steve out of his sight, at least for now. 

Steve follows Bucky to the bathroom, retrieving a spare towel on his way, and runs a bath for him. Bucky takes his jacket off, though he bites his lip, and cradles his metal arm to him, looking at Steve like he doesn’t want to offend him. 

“It’s okay. I don’t mind,” Steve reassures him. He hates that Bucky needs that thing now – that he relies on something that makes him feel even more like a machine – but he doesn't find it nearly as disgusting or unattractive as Bucky thinks he does. _It’s part of him, now_ , he thinks. _How can I hate it?_

Bucky continues to undress until he’s down to his boxers; when he goes to take them off, Steve tells him, “You can, uh . . . You can stop there,” 

Bucky just shrugs, and climbs into the bath. It troubles Steve a lot that he’s more bothered about showing Steve his arm than he is about taking off the rest of his clothes. _What did they do to you, Bucky?_

“Is it damaged?” Steve asks, pointing at the metal arm as Bucky lowers himself into the tub with a grimace. It’s hot, yeah – but not painfully so.  
“From the fighting. And the river,” Bucky explains, his eyes sliding over the limb wistfully.  
“. . . Oh,” Steve replies. _I should have remembered._  
“It gets glitchy. Don’t wanna make it worse with more water,”  
“. . . Right,” 

Bucky leans back against the end of the bath, with his metal arm hanging limply at the side; his other arm balances on the rim of the tub, on the other side. He looks forward, his expression vacant, as he stares at the tiles on the opposite wall. The water covers his knees, slightly bent, and his stomach. His shoulders are, by necessity, dry. 

“We could tape it up,” Steve tells him. Bucky doesn’t respond. “. . . Put some plastic over it . . .”

His voice trails off. He’s not sure Bucky can hear it anymore. 

“. . . Buck?” 

But it’s no use. _Maybe he needs to be left alone, for a while_. He leaves Bucky to his thoughts – if he’s not ready to share them yet, then fine. He’s got all the time in the world. He’s willing to wait. 

_Water – water was one of their favourites_ \- and the Winter Soldier's, when he got to work. Dehydration, simulated drowning – it didn’t matter which, the outcome was always the same. He felt like he was going to die. _I should have died_. 

He remembers drowning others, too – shoving their heads into rivers, and swimming pools, and the shallowest of basins – _crack their head first, the blood loss will kill ‘em even if you don’t have the time to drown ‘em properly –_

Torture, violence – and training others in their use. Somehow, Steve being nice to him – treating him like a friend, and a fucking _normal human being_ – brought it all back to him . . . How much he didn’t deserve it, how much he was the last man on Earth Steve Rogers should want to look after, or be friends with, or even look at-

“Bucky!” 

He doesn’t realise he’s slipped under the surface until he opens his eyes: Steve’s face is obscured, distorted – but how is that any different to normal? Every memory he has of the guy is twisted and partial; altered and hazy. It’s like someone tried to overwrite them with versions where Steve wasn’t his best friend, but his worst enemy – but they didn’t quite succeed, so now he knows they used to be best friends, but he’s not sure how he feels about that – 

He knows that Steve still loves him. He doesn’t know if he's capable of loving him back. 

He feels hands on his flesh arm, and a tug on his metal arm that indicates it’s being pulled on: he emerges from the water, but he doesn’t take a huge breath. He’s learnt to withstand a long, long time without oxygen. He couldn’t have been under for more than five minutes. 

“Jesus, Buck – are you okay? What happened?!” Steve is saying. Bucky looks up at him, his eyes and face blank; but behind them, turmoil. He can’t vocalise what he wants to – flattened affect masks the pleading, the begging that the old Bucky wants him to make audible –

_Help me. Please, God – help me. I don’t want to be this way. I don’t want to be me, anymore, if I can’t be the way I used to be with you, Steve . I don’t want to be this way._

He needs Steve – he knows that much – but can he return his love? He’s just a dead weight – literally, Steve is dragging him out of the bath and onto the floor, wrapping a towel around his shoulders – he’s a burden; heavy and emotionless right now as a stone, who can’t return Steve’s love, even if he wants to. 

“You gotta be more careful,” Steve chastises, though the look in his eyes tells Bucky he knows it wasn’t one hundred percent accidental that he ended up under that water. 

He hands Bucky a second towel, with a muttered, _for your hair_. He doesn’t want Bucky to get cold. 

But Bucky uses the second towel to immediately start drying his metal limb – after all, if it stops working, then what good is he, to Steve? If he can’t fight for him, and defend his only friend, and he can’t return his affection – then what fucking use is he? 

“Here-” Steve gently pries the towel from Bucky’s hand, and starts to towel off the metal limb on his own. The soldier’s eyes widen, as he watches Steve drying the limb like it’s the most precious thing he’s ever handled. He works with a sense of purpose Bucky recognises –

“. . . Just like when you used to shine my boots,” . . . _An old memory_. They come back all the time, around Steve.  
Steve looks up, his eyebrows raised in surprise. Within seconds, though, he’s grinning.  
“Sure. Gotta get the shine just right,” Bucky feels the corners of his mouth turn up without him even trying, this time.  
“You better,” Bucky tells him, a hint of shaky amusement in his voice. “. . . You missed a spot,” Steve shakes his head, grinning still, as he continues to work. Bucky uses the corner of the towel around his shoulders to dry his drenched hair, his small smile slipping from his face and replaced by a frown, as he musses it into submission.  
“. . . I wouldn’t have died,” Steve falters for a moment; doesn’t look up. “I can hold my breath for seven minutes,”  
“Why would you want to?” Steve asks conversationally, but there’s a tense edge to it; the question isn’t nearly as calm or casual as he’d like it to be. Bucky huffs out a hollow laugh.  
“Survival,” He tells his old friend, “If you _want_ to survive, that is,”  
Steve pauses at that, looking up with an expression of mild horror; his lips are parted in shock, and Bucky can see heartbreak in his eyes, though he’s trying to reel it in. 

“. . . Times were tough,” Bucky tells him, looking down and pursing his lips, unable to maintain eye contact.  
Steve remains frozen for only a second more – then, he turns back to his task with a heavy, world-weary sigh that Bucky regrets causing. “. . . Yeah. They were,” He agrees. There’s another moment of silence, in which Steve – with Bucky’s help – manipulates the metal arm, drying it all over. 

“. . . Thank you. For taking care of me,” Bucky tells him.  
“It’s nothing,”  
“It’s not,” He insists immediately, taking Steve’s wrist in his flesh hand – his grip is light, and he’s trying to be ever-so-careful not to hurt his friend – which causes him to look up again, in surprise. “When . . . When I was with _them_ -” He swallows convulsively for a moment, feeling the burn of bile in the back of his throat at the memories, “. . . They used to _maintain_ me. As a weapon – you look after me like a – like-”

Laughter. Sometimes there was even _laughter_ , amongst the hatred. That was easy for them – easy for them to think nothing of him, and treat him like a machine, and maintain a baseline level of hatred and apathy towards him . . . Steve is strong. 

He knows that, because he knows that it takes strength to be gentle, and kind. That’s why HYDRA will never win. He hopes that, one day, he’ll overcome this state of emotionless , blank interaction, and remember how to feel . . . How to feel not just pain and sadness, but those small feelings – amusement, contentment, relaxation – that they’d made him forget how to experience. He'll hopefully learn one day, too, how to feel the things that Steve makes him feel – pride, belonging, love – without feeling bad, or his memories being spoilt by old conditioning, like a ghost from his past insisting on stealing his future. 

“. . . It’s hard for me to feel, now,” He says finally, knowing it’s an inadequate description of his full thoughts – but also knowing that at that moment, those thoughts are so jumbled and numerous, that it would be pointless to try and vocalise each and every one. 

Having thoughts of his own is hard. Feeling as if they’re worthy, and he deserves to have and experience them, is . . . It’s even harder. 

“It’s fine, Buck,” Steve tells him, using the nickname he’s clearly missed saying, living in his empty, impersonal apartment all alone; missing the friend he’s searched for, longed for - well, since before he knew he was still alive – in whatever state.  
“No – no, I mean . . . I’m gonna get there. Eventually,” Bucky explains, with a frown. Yeah – picking words is the hardest thing. It’s not just _she’s mine to kill, go after him_ and _scream all you like, you’re still going to_ \- 

. . . No. No, he’ll never say anything like that, ever again, if he can help it. 

“. . . I’m gonna learn how to – how to _reciprocate_. I’m gonna learn how to be your friend,”  
“You already are,” Steve tells him gently, smiling all the while, with a hand on his metal shoulder. Bucky can feel the pressure – reassuring, not testing him in any way – and he likes it. Even though he’s touching a phantom limb, Steve can’t possibly know how much his touch helps.  
“You know what I mean, jerk,” Bucky tells him, trying to smile once again. It’s hard – that, too, is gonna take practise. Steve huffs out a laugh, and withdraws his hand, pausing for a moment. 

“You must be tired,” He says. “I’ll take the sofa – you can have my bed,”  
“Couch cushions,” Bucky suggests, taking Steve by surprise – but it’s a nice surprise, and he nods.  
“You got it, pal,” He tells his long-lost friend, before standing up; he takes Bucky’s metal hand, and pulls him up with him. 

Steve will find him some sweatpants, and a shirt. Steve will cook him breakfast. Steve will talk to him, and share all the best things about the 21st century with him, and help him get back to – well, not who he used to be, but who he _is_ , after everything that’s happened. He'll scrub him clean of all the filth and horror that he feels cling to him; he'll help him feel fresh, and revitalised, and _alive_.

Steve will help him feel, again. Steve will help him be the Bucky he needs to be.


End file.
